How We Got Here: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Well, this is where you came in...''|'''[[Sunset Boulevard|Joe Gillis]]''', ''viewing [[Posthumous Narration|his own dead body]].''}}

See also [[Back to Front]], [[Foregone Conclusion]], [[Starts With Their Funeral]], and [[This Is My Story]]. Goes very well with [[Private Eye Monologue]]. Can often be used as a highly effective [[Driving Question]].

* ''[[Metal Gear|Metal Gear Solid 2]]'' begins with Solid Snake as the narrator reminiscing of the events of the Tanker chapter.

* Possibly (subverted? inverted?) twisted in the game ''[[Second Sight]]'', you play as John Vattic, waking up in the hospital with the sudden power of telepathy. Periodically throughout the game, you suffer flashbacks to an adventure you had in Russia, where you were acting as a paranormal specialist (with a strong disbelief in psychic powers). The twist is that flashbacks are usually triggered by discovering something that triggers your memory, but (really quite minor spoiler) {{spoiler|after what happens in the flashback doesn't match the information you received, (i.e. some one you knew supposedly dying in Russia), the information changes to reflect your memory (same example- the person's records listing them as alive, now)}}. And then, of course, (major spoiler:) {{spoiler|he later discovers that his list of psychic powers actually includes precognition, and that all the events from waking up in the hospital on are actually a possible future that he is foretelling will happen if he doesn't change it, and his supposed flashbacks are the actual events as they unfold.}}

* ''[[Uncharted]] 2: Among Thieves'' begins with Nathan Drake, bleeding out from his stomach, barely holding on to a train car that's hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff in a snowy mountain range, and the game uses the opportunity to teach you how to climb stuff. The game then flashes back and forth between that point and four months prior when everything started, and eventually sticks you back four months ago and goes from there. You get back to the hanging train car about halfway through the game. {{spoiler|And then you have to climb it ''again'', with Nate complaining about all the spoilery stuff you wouldn't have known about at first, such as Chloe refusing to be rescued from Lazarevic and how his "hero" efforts aren't appreciated and how he is just ''sick'' of climbing shit...}}

* ''[[Endless Ocean]] 2'' opens with whales absolutely everywhere, the player in a boat with a bunch of strangers, an entrance to a mysterious ruin... and then the flashback kicks in and you're asked what you look like and given your job interview.

* The entirety of ''[[The Space Between]]'' thus far is framed like this, told in [[Flash Back]] by the main character, three years later.

* ''[[Dreamless]]''

* The first story of ''[[What the Fu (Webcomic)|What the Fu]]'' starts with this, but [[Subverted Trope|doesn't really offer much of an explanation]].

* The first page of ''[[The Fuzzy Five]]'' apparently starts [[In Medias Res]], but after '''one frame''', Spirit invites Otto to [[Flash Back]] to how it all got started.

* One episode of ''Sushi Pack'' uses this trope to set up a [[The Rashomon|Rashomon]], with two characters remembering the events of the day differently as they try to figure out how they ended up on an asteroid hurtling toward Earth.

* ''[[The Emperor's New Groove (Disney)|The Emperors New Groove]]''' begins with a sad llama sitting all alone in the middle of a rainstorm. The voiceover informs us this llama once was a powerful emperor. The first half of the movies focuses on how he got there.

* The first episode of ''Ruby Gloom'' starts with Ruby running through the house, seemingly avoiding her friends as they try to get her attention. Then, it takes us back (with a narrator reading as the words are typed on the screen) to "EARLIER THAT DOY" (the last word being a miswritten "day").

* The ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'' episode where Steve was found dead in his pool. {{spoiler|It's a look-alike}}

[[Category:Flashbacks and Chronology]]

[[Category:Beginning Tropes]]